December Post Meme - Day 3

remindmeofthe wants me to talk about the Cornetto Trilogy. There are spoilers in this post.

The Cornetto Trilogy, for those who aren't familiar, is a trilogy of movies that have nothing to do with one another, outside of references to a delicious ice cream snack. The first is Shaun of the Dead, which is a zombie movie, symbolised by the red wrapper of the Strawberry Cornetto, the second is Hot Fuzz, a police movie symbolised by the blue wrapper of the classice Cornetto, and the third is the World's End, an alien movie symbolised by the green wrapper of the mint Cornetto. These movies have much of the same cast and crew in all three of them, with the same writers and director.

There are two things about this series that particularly stand out to me. The first is the humour used. Unlike a lot of the comedy you see that relies on making the viewer uncomfortable or resorting to fart jokes, these movies are largely inoffensive. There is very rough language in all three movies, and they all earn their R rating within the first ten minutes, but the humour comes from the situations, rather than people being horrible to one another. The "he's not my boyfriend" joke (which was actually a callback to Spaced, where the joke started), isn't the sort of no-homo joke where the men accused of being boyfriends are grossed out by the idea. The joke is funny because if Shaun wasn't dating Liz, he probably would be dating Ed. Immediately after he says, "He's not my boyfriend," Ed hands him a pint, and Shaun winks at him and says, "Thanks, babe."

The movies are also very smart, and assume that the viewer is able to keep up with the plot. Which, there's not much plot to be had in a zombie apocalypse movie, outside of there are zombies, run away. But Hot Fuzz has so much going on in it that it's genuinely a good action movie on top of being funny as hell. It's a buddy cop movie about a murderous cult, where the buddy cops fall in love at the end. Even Pegg and Wright confirmed that yeah, the slashfic is right, and it's not just horny teenage fangirls reading too much into it (like so many other creators are so quick to say). And then they wrote the slashy sequel on Twitter.

The World's End, despite being about aliens, is probably the realest movie of the trilogy. Gary used to be the coolest member of his clique, back in sixth form. But it's 20 years later, and everyone else has moved on but him. He still wears Sisters of Mercy t-shirts and dyes his hair black like he's 17. Out of nowhere, he rounds up the gang and decides that what they need to do is go on a pub crawl they failed to complete when they were younger. Gary becomes obsessed, and not even an alien invasion is going to stop him from finishing the crawl. And this movie in particular is what really stands out as far as inoffensive humour. Because toward the end, you learn that Gary tried to kill himself, and still has the bandages around his wrists. Think about when the last time was that you watched a comedy movie where a character who was actively depressed and suicidal wasn't treaded as a joke to be laughed at. It's something I hadn't even realised I'd never seen until the movie suddenly went from hilarious to heart breaking in about half a second. Gary's still an utterly ridiculous character, but that was probably one of the best-handled scenes I've ever seen. And that's the second thing about these movies that I love. How much they grow up. Shaun of the Dead is a silly little thing that doesn't have much plot at all. By the time you get to the World's End, which is basically about the same thing (getting to a pub in the middle of a supernatural invasion), everything is more grown up and adult. The themes have shifted from "wah my girlfriend left me" to being about people who just cannot let go of the past. The trilogy was nearly ten years in the making, and you can see how everyone's grown up over the course of it. How they went from making movies for the 20-something set to making movies for everyone. Shaun of the Dead and the World's End kind of bookend the very short series, because you can see how they took the opportunity to fix the bits of Shaun that hadn't quite worked before.


And then there are the bits that haven't changed at all.

There are still so many slots open on my post. Go fill some! http://loki-of-sassgaard.dreamwidth.org/47708.html

Reign of Giants

Yesterday, Robin Hood asked me if I've played Reign of Giants yet (Don't Stave DLC). I said no, and asked if it was any good, assuming he was asking because he'd played it. I never actually got a response to that question, but a few seconds later, I got a gift on Steam. Because the last thing I need right now, when I'm scrambling to get Christmas Presents done, is a shiny new DLC for a video game. Though I've actually been pretty good at not starting it until later in the evening.

I've been doing pretty good. I'm on day twenty-something, and have a fairly decent self-sustaining base going. I really want to try to get myself a bunny hutch, but I think they attack you if you have meat on you? I'm gonna have to double check that before I try.

And then a typical conversation between the two of us happened while I was playing tonight.

That was even one of the more benign things I've said. At least I didn't tell him I have bird flu again.